Sacajawea (177 page)

“You are like the coyote on the trail of a rabbit. He has no sense of the past, only a hunger to devour the future. But to follow the rabbit he soon stops and raises his head and sniffs the air. He sees signs and listens to the world around him. He sees the trail behind as well as the one ahead. But still the future is ahead, up toward the red cliff top covered with mist. He angles up and up.
Wagh!
That dreaded and hungered-for future is no more than the present which resembles the past. They are all one. But you must learn this for yourself. Each man must travel his own trail.”

And Sacajawea, with shining eyes that saw more, nearsighted with age, than when they had been perfect, reached for her little sack of tobacco. “When I am alone I can hear steps. I look up and see a man in my doorway. He might be the one called Jerk Meat, or a certain white man called Chief Red Hair—both dead these many years. No! It does not surprise me if he is any of these. There are shapes of men less alive than shadows of men. So then even I confuse what has been and will be with what is.”

In her wisdom she taught that winter the lessons that must be learned by each alone, and she saw the comprehension in the boy’s bright eyes and dreamed of his reading and writing at the Carlisle School.

She thought of the changes. The Indians always hunted twice a year, the white men hunted the year around. The Indians enjoyed the old raiding back and forth, but the whites preached tranquillity. Indian women took pride in a well-tanned hide, sewing, painting, and cooking, but white women had someone else do these things for them. How will a person distinguish himself from every other individual? she thought.
¹

She said to Speedy Jim, “The Story Writer Woman makes believe she understands what is in my heart through my words. But writing will only show my life cold and pale as the paper she marks on, for she can not feel my feelings as if she has been with me all those long-gone years.”

“Oh, Grandmother,” said Speedy Jim, “certainly there will be those who read your story and will know you are somebody grand in the memories of both the Indians and the whites.”

“No, I say what I now feel”—she sat bent over the fire, her thin hand holding the red blanket together—“I shall never see this story on paper all together, and neither will you, nor any other person.”

Sometimes she told Speedy Jim stories about herself just before the reservation time. “Once I traded moccasins with Mr. Bocker at the sutler store at Bridger’s Fort. I traded them for a dollar and fifty cents and some blue and red beads. Another time I gave him a fine buffalo robe for three dollars, some hard candy, and a small looking glass. The next time I brought him a fine buffalo robe he paid me in ‘shin-plasters,’ or paper money. ‘I do not want this white man’s paper,’ I told him. ‘I want hard money.’ You see, I did not know the value of this kind of paper money. But I would know now. The Story Writer Woman and Jakie Moore have taught me how to count carefully, so that I get full value for what I trade.”

In the spring, Sacajawea said to the family of Shoogan, ‘This grandson of mine is not wild and no longer so ignorant of the old ways. He learns quickly. Let him go to Carlisle now and learn the new ways.”

To Speedy Jim alone, she said, “You have helped me well, Grandson. You can help your people now by going away. So leave this place. Go to the school.”

Speedy Jim was shocked. ‘To the white man’s school? Who will pay? I never thought you really meant I would have to go.”

“And so, then, you know.” Sacajawea went on quietly, “I have traded much at the stores and have saved. The money does me no good. It is yours.” And Sacajawea drew back into the loneliness of her tepee.

In the spring, Sacajawea could see the fields of corn and wheat that the reservation Shoshonis had planted. Small green shoots coming up from the yellow and reddish brown soil contrasted with the tall alder and aspen and slender, graceful birch on the upper hills.

Indian Agent Irwin at Fort Washakie planned for months with Finn Burnett, the Government Agricultural Agent, to have on some particular issue day a special feast and some horse racing to build a better feeling between the government employees and their Indian charges.

It was midmorning, and Shoogan walked with his family toward the large gathering of people in the open area north of Jakie’s store. Shoogan was old and withered with a face like a sick hawk’s. He limped and half hopped along on his bad leg. He grunted through closed lips, sending a small quiver through a sprout of turkey feathers he wore on his head. The others, held up, waited for him. Only their eyes stirred, looking here and there. Dancing Leaf walked proudly beside him, older and heavier, pulling her blanket tightly around her up to her neck. His other woman, Devoted, shuffled along behind. Andrew Bazil, squatty, wearing a white man’s hat, came next with his woman and children. The children darted around Nancy Bazil, her braids swinging as her face turned. She had put a red line down her center hair part. Her man had ambled off for a cup of coffee laced heavily with sugar.

Out past Jakie’s store a dance had started. They walked toward the beat of drums and the chants of the dancers. “This is some new dance,” said Dancing Leaf. “I do not recognize the beat.”

Some of the more forward young men had come to Sacajawea’s tepee not more than a week before and asked her about the Sun Dance of the Sioux. They wondered why the Shoshoni never had such a dance.

“What?” she asked, scraping flesh from a horse hide she had bought with that week’s rations. “You want to perform the dance of our enemies?” She shouted, after a look at their faces, “You are certain you could do such a thing?”

One of the young men said, “But, Grandmother, we just want to try it.”

“Can you not see I am busy making this hide soft for moccasins?”

“We want to see for ourselves if we like this dance.”

“It would not be in good taste for a Shoshoni to adopt a ceremony from his enemy.”

“Tell us how it is done.”

A broad-faced youth, knife-scarred from eye to jaw, growled words and stepped toward her.

She regarded the young men for a moment with a crinkled look of amusement about her eyes. “Grandsons, you are in a hurry,” she said. “Can you not wait for the story?”

Her thoughts came slowly—the remembrances of the Mandan torture rites, from which the Sioux had taken a small part and called it their Sun Dance. Then it had traveled to the Cheyennes and Arapahos, so that now it was well known that the Plains Indians had used the Sun Dance to prove manhood. She clearly remembered the voices of the women who had had men performing the torture ceremony. The sounds of their voices carried their own indisputable meaning; they were proud and frightened. Here in this different place it was true again. These youths with no deep understanding of the older ways were demanding that she tell them about the rites. How could she do that without making certain they understood the whole reasoning behind the rituals, the feelings of the families and friends, the pride and honor the ceremony brought, the anticipation and concern and worry? The voices of the youths were crass and disrespectful.

With fumbling fingers Sacajawea put down her hide scraper and pushed aside the pile of hair and tissue. “Keep your ears uncovered while I talk,” she said. “You chop weeds and sell it for grass. You stir up the dirt and grow corn. You build fences and pen up cattle. And so, the men who danced the old time Sun Dance did not do these things.” Then she held out her pipe to the broad-faced youth. “Please, fill it. My hands shake. I waste half my good tobacco.” Then she told, as best she could, the story of the Mandan Okeepa. After a few moments the boys settled down, their eyes fastened on Sacajawea’s expressive old face.

Shoogan’s son, Andrew, said the issue day festivities planned by Dr. James Irwin were to persuade the foolish families who lived poorly off the reservation to come and live with the loafers who lived badly on the reservation. “One senseless brave told me he would rather eat dung than be corralled on a reservation,” Andrew said to his father.

The fort’s soldiers made huge amounts of coffee in five-gallon lard buckets. Most Shoshoni brought their tin cups already prepared with sugar in the bottom.

There was a line of women with their yards of government-issue domestic cotton wrapped around themselves blanket-style. They laughed and chatted as they filed by various clerks who marked their cards and gave them their allotment of cornmeal, sugar, salt, coffee, and soap. The People were most eager for the coffee and sugar, but the cornmeal they fed to their horses.
²

In front of the agency corral, the men, stripped to the waist, waited on horseback for the beef to be issued on the hoof. The cattle were soon turned loose in the field behind the agency. The men
kiyi-ed
and dug their heels into the horses’ sides and pretended they were on an old-time buffalo hunt. They fired pistols to bring down the animals. When all the cattle were killed the women and children ran out to help the men skin and butcher the cows. Several heated arguments took place, as more than one family owned each cow and the choice rump roasts could not always be divided among all the owners. Shoogan passed around pieces of raw liver sprinkled with a few drops of gall. Andrew thought the warm raw liver alone not too bad. It tasted like raw oyster. The women cleaned the cow’s entrails. Then they wound them around green willow sticks and let the squealing children hold the meat in the hot ashes of the roasting trench until the wound-up meat was ready for eating.

When it was time for the horse racing, the soldiers barricaded the long, level dirt road between the agency buildings with wooden horses and empty barrels. Along the road they laid out a half-mile track where two horses could race at one time. When one race was finished and all bets were paid, another race took place, as long as there were riders and horses to compete. In the nick of time, several frantic mothers pulled their young children from playing in the street. The galloping horses could have run them down. The freight wagons were detoured around the racers or stopped and detained until the show was over. Some of the losers were left without their horses. Some lost money earned from grass leases or hauling jobs. Some lost all the rations they had collected on this issue day. Shoogan watched the man who lost the last race explain to his wife that he had bet her ration of twelve yards of cotton goods. She was obligated to honor the winner. She and her children would go without the dresses and shirts they needed.

A broad-faced youth ambled toward Shoogan, grinning and pushing his big hat toward the back of his head. “Hi there, Grandfather.”

“Hello, Son,” said Shoogan, not recognizing the youth.

“How’s everything going?”

“Fine.”

“I’m sure glad to find you. You see over there?” He pointed toward the circle of young people dancing from left to right in a circle. “Some of us have started a real old-time Sun Dance, and we want you to direct us. To be director—master of ceremonies.”

“But—I’ve never—”

“Oh, we’ll tell you what to do. We got all the details from old Porivo.”

Bewildered, Shoogan limped between two young men who pushed him along the inside of the circle. “Now sing—anything,” instructed one. “Stamp your feet a little and hold your face to the south,” said another.

“But—”

“Go ahead,” someone said.

Shoogan glimpsed the shine of a hunting knife clasped in the right hand of the speaker.

“Grab hands and dance serpentine until you have circled the flagpole,” said Shoogan. “Come on, do as I say if you want a real dance. Where else can you find a straighter pole?” The youth with the knife grabbed his hand. Shoogan bent his head low to the ground and straightened with his head in the air, bent and straightened with each heel-toe step. The ones behind him did the same. They circled the flagpole. For a moment Shoogan watched a hawk caught in a high thermal. It flew above the mountain peaks against the clouds. The clouds were blown away and the hawk was left in a calm against the blue sky. Shoogan thought, Hawk, are you still my helper? He pulled from the circle and stood inside. He coughed once to attract attention. “Listen, I know a Shoshoni dance, older than the Sun Dance of the Sioux.” He was not certain what else he was going to say or do.

“Hey, Grandfather, old Porivo told us about the Mandans’ dance. You know that one? We want a genuine Sun Dance. We will give Porivo credit for telling us about the Sun Dance first. But you be the leader.”
³

“Ai,
my dance belongs to our people. Pay attention!” Shoogan looked at the top of the fort’s flagpole, where the stars and stripes snapped brightly next to the sky. “On a long, straight, lodgepole pine, your grandfathers hung their battle scalps. Can you imagine ten, fifteen scalp locks whipping way up there in the wind? What a sight! At sunset when the flag is brought down, we can pretend there are real scalps popping and flapping up there. The bravest man among you will recite about the time he actually counted coup on an enemy or a charging buffalo or moose or grizzly.”

“You mean like the time Joe Ptarmigan struck a marshal in Rock Springs?” called out one of the youths. The others snickered at the old joke of Joe getting liquored up on vanilla extract and punching the territorial marshal.

“You know what I mean. This is an old-fashioned, time-honored dance. Sing about the buffalo, moose, or grizzly, and dance. I will get my big whip so that it will all be really authentic. Someone else get a drummer. Clap and move back and forth until I get back!”

Shoogan slipped from the circle of youths and walked as fast as he could, limping behind the agency buildings through the brilliant red paintbrush and orange gaillardia to the barren, red dirt path to Sacajawea’s tepee. He wiped perspiration from his face with a faded red kerchief.

She had heard the clapping of hands and stamping of dancing feet. She could not make out the words of the leader, but knew it was old Shoogan. She sat in front of her door feeling the warmth of the sun on her head. She thought of boys and girls dancing in two circles, the girls on the outside. It was a relic of the past. But even then they enjoyed the flirting. Then she heard Shoogan’s uneven footsteps.